Sympathy for the Devil

I know that more than a few of you who know me exclusively from my work on Paranormal State are baffled about my stance on the Black Mass that they're planning to perform at Harvard this coming Monday. For some of you, it's probably sounding like Captain America defending the rights of the Agents of Hydra to hold evil master-mind meetings to plot the control of the world. I mean, I help fight the big bad things, right? So why would I speak up and tell you that this Black Mass isn't necessarily the worst thing ever.
One person: Chris Robichaud.

Some of you know I went to a Jesuit Catholic university. I'm not Christian by any stretch, but the Jesuits are amazing educators. I didn't exactly fit in, but I do not regret the education I received. Intellectually, I flourished at that school.

Chris was a year behind me at the college. We both took the same course on demonology. We both adored the professor, Dr. Joseph Kelley, who taught it, and we took as many of the classes offered by the brilliant man as we could.

If you've read my book, Haunting Experiences, and you were chilled and thrilled by the antics of whatever walks the place called "Whitethorn Woods," you have met Chris under a pseudonym. He was there, raising hell in the woods of Geauga County with the rest of us. He was a whipsmart, intense, and fiery soul then, and it surprises me not one jot to see that he has gone on to become a brilliant, outspoken, and influential teacher in his own right these twenty years later.

A Harvard ethicist, Chris was asked to speak before the performance of the Black Mass -- to give the event a little context. He's had people attempt to dissuade him from doing so, offering dire warnings that the controversy surrounding this event will tarnish his career.

True to what I know of him, that controversy has not discouraged him. He has a powerful message -- and getting those words out to people is worth more than any of the censure he might possibly face for being associated with some devilish spectacle.

They are words that you absolutely should hear yourselves, even if you would never venture within 100 miles of a Black Mass -- regardless of whether or not it was merely an "historical reenactment" of such a rite. Chris's message revolves around the possible existence of the Devil and whether or not something like a Black Mass might pose a danger with regards to that scion of evil:

I tell you this much. If Satan does exist, you're not going to find him at historical reenactments of black masses, or in the ouija board, or at the D&D table. You're going to find him, primarily, in every moment of indifference we have toward those who are suffering, an indifference that is only facilitated by an obsession with preventing inconsequential nonsense from happening, rather than directing one's energies toward addressing very real moral atrocities.

-- Christopher Robichaud, Harvard Ethicist

And this -- this is why I've picked the issue up, written on it, and spammed the hell out of that writing on my social media over the past few days. I'd spill ink across the whole of the Internet in order to help get that message out. Because real evil is never where you expect to see it. A rich man who makes his profits knowingly upon the suffering of others has done more to invite the Devil into this world than a bunch of college students in spooky black robes will ever be able to -- no matter how good they are at speaking the Lord's Prayer backwards in Latin.